A Matter of Perception
by JessObsess
Summary: Harvey/Mike, written for Suitsmeme prompt: "Someone in the office  preferably an OMC or minor canon character  has been making unwanted advances towards Mike."


Title: A Matter of Perception  
>Pairing: HarveyMike (Suits)  
>Summary: Originally posted on the Suits kink meme for this prompt: "Someone in the office (preferably an OMC or minor canon character) has been making unwanted advances towards Mike. Not wanting to appear weak in front of anyone at the firm, Mike does his best to deal with it. Which means he doesn't deal with it at all. Finally, Harvey takes notice (maybe Mike's moods have changed, he hasn't been eating, etc.) and steps in to make the creep back off."<br>Word count: approx. 7,000  
>Warnings: workplace harassment<p>

Mike comes into work looking tired, and his grin is oddly strained when he tries to hand off a day-late subpoena to Donna.

"Were you up all night working on this?" she asks, looking him over with a raised eyebrow. "You know, you don't have to have a degree from Harvard to know that sleep is _good_. Or that it's not my job to cover for you."

"Is it your job to be nice to me?" Mike replies, leaning into her desk and ignoring the question.

"It's her job to give you crap about shoddy work when I'm not here to." Harvey is suddenly behind Mike, reaching around him for the subpoena and his coffee. "You were wearing that same one yesterday," he comments, gesturing at Mike's tie with the hand holding the file.

"Do you see, Donna? Harvey notices what I wear to work! He probably takes notes just so he can review them later. You two team up and rate my outfits one through ten after I leave the room, don't you? Ten for 'snazzy', one for 'not expensive enough.'"

"I don't think either of us has ever said 'snazzy' in our lives. Have we, Harvey?"

"I may have, once or twice. But certainly never in reference to one of Mike's suits." Harvey and Donna share a smirk, one of their evil tag-teaming smirks that happen nearly every time the two of them are in the same place with someone they deem a lesser life form.

Mike blinks at them. "I'm going to leave now," he says, turning away from Donna's desk to go. Harvey stops him.

"Hey, I'm not tearing you a new one this time because you knew the witness was out of town. But you need to keep up, okay? Don't start getting behind, or you'll be buried sooner or later."

"I'm sorry, I know. I won't. I—well, distractions and all of that," Mike says. Harvey holds his gaze for a moment, before Mike breaks it, clearing his throat.

Harvey takes a long swallow from his coffee, giving himself stalling time for an in-depth catalogue of the bags underneath Mike's eyes, the bit of food on his tie, the way he's slouched just slightly and his grateful smile doesn't quite reach his tired eyes. "I'd ask you what distractions, but you'd only use it as an excuse to claim I care. Just get rid of them."

Mike nods, and if he slumps a little further into himself when he walks away (as if there's any room to do so, he's practically skin and bones as it is), Harvey pretends not to notice.

Donna, in a testament to why he keeps her around, pretends not to notice his pretending.

"So, I talked to Donna," Rachel says as she finally looks up from the papers on her desk.

Mike fiddles with his tie a bit. "That's the hello I get after waiting nearly twenty whole seconds for a response?"

"The hello you get is the one I think you deserve for being late again with a _subpoena_, of all things. They're only about the easiest thing you'll need to do at your level."

"You talked to Donna about my work? Are you two buddies, now? Do you braid each other's hair and paint your fingernails and talk about that dashing Ross boy from work?"

"Same as you and Harvey do together, yes, except that both of you only talk about yourselves at your sleepovers. Probably in the third person, because that's what assholes do."

Mike laughs and plants himself in the chair across from her. "Whenever I have a sleepover with someone, there isn't usually much talking involved."

"Please don't talk to me about your little sex fantasies."

"How can reality also be fantasy? Is that a new thing?" Mike stands suddenly, eyes wide with mock excitement. "You know what we should do? We should write a script about that! It'll be mind-boggling, and at the end people won't know if it was real or just in the characters' heads or what."

Rachel looks at him in the way one would look at an overly excitable puppy who had just urinated on his own chew-toy, like she hates to take this from him, but he's pissed all over it. "I think that movie's already gotten a couple of Oscars."

"Damn it. Do you think I could get away with writing basically the same script but translating it into Russian? Sell it overseas, you know the drill."

"You tell me, Mr. Lawyer Boy."

"That's Mr. Lawyer _Man_ to you." Mike sits down again, slouching in his chair, and Rachel has a brief second to think that he's become entirely too comfortable around her if he can't even bother sitting up straight, before he starts again, "So, no, seriously. When did you and Donna start talking?"

Rachel sets her pen down, clearly giving up on the idea of doing actual work for the next minute or so. "Well, let's see… probably around the time she asked me if you were paying me to be your assistant or if Jessica was the one signing the paycheck. And then I threatened her life. We've been pretty close ever since that heart-warming encounter."

"I don't like this turn of events."

"Why?"

"Because now I know she'll tell you whenever I screw up and you two will giggle about it later."

"You have a very refreshing view of women, Michael." Rachel picks up her pen again, clearly dismissing him. He only leans into her desk, placing a hand over her papers.

"Rachel, I'm _joking_." She looks up at him and then directs her eyes sharply back to his hand covering her work as if to say, _move them or I'll eat them_, and he takes it back.

"I know you are, but I'm working, so unless you're going to tell me what is going on that's keeping you up all night working on something as simple as a subpoena, you're going to have to leave me alone until my lunch break."

"This is why I like you, Rach. You're just, constantly willing to kick my ass."

"Talk to you during lunch break, then?"

"Sounds good," Mike says, and he stands to leave. Louis is outside her office – good god, does he have some sort of _psychic_ connection to Mike? – and he's nearly to the clear glass door when Rachel's voice makes him turn around again.

"By the way, Donna and I do gossip about the firm. But you shouldn't assume that, or the majority of the population of New York business-women will also soon be willing to constantly kick your ass." She's smiling, and so he grins back with a nod.

"Duly noted."

He and Rachel decide to eat outside the firm, because Rachel doesn't want to spend money on good food, and Mike doesn't want to spend money on a cab or a tandem bike.

Rachel sits on a bench and takes out a packet of napkins from her purse, laying them on her lap and placing her hot dog down with a flourish. Mike laughs incredulously.

She squints up at him, taking note of his expression despite the sun in her eyes. "What? You actually trust a street vendor's napkins to be clean?"

"I trust myself not to care," Mike replies, and rubs his own potentially unclean paper towel along the side of his own hot dog, getting rid of some excess grease. He then bites off nearly half of his hot dog in one go. Rachel gives him a vaguely sickened look. He says, mouth full of food, "Mmm—germy."

"You're disgusting."

Mike ignores this in favor of sitting himself down next to her and finishing the hot dog in only two more bites. "D'you want a soda or anything? On me, because in addition to being just plain disgusting, I am disgustingly charming, and disgustingly generous."

"I want you to tell me why you're not focusing on your job."

Mike's smile slips a bit, and he sighs, tossing his napkin into a trash can near them. He misses, and picks it up, the potential fines for littering passing through his mind as a warning. "I just—I had this friend. And he's been bugging me, that's all."

"In the middle of the night?" Rachel looks concerned.

"Well, no. But when I'm at work I am focused, for the most part. And then I get home, and if there's something I haven't finished from the day, it's a lot harder for me to concentrate because so much about my apartment reminds me of him. He came over last night to see me, but we just yelled at each other through the door, like a couple of real men." Mike shrugs his shoulders, leaning back into the bench a bit. "He thinks I fucked up his relationship with his girlfriend. When in reality he fucked it up, and I just expedited the fucking."

"The fucking? Were you two—"

Mike laughs shortly. "No, sorry. That was a poor choice of words. Well, I mean—once, but that was just—college." He shrugs again, and then seems to realize what he's just admitted to, looking over at Rachel with only half-worried eyes. Like he's too tired to trouble himself with being concerned about whether or not it would bother her.

"Hey, I don't care if you're—whatever you are. I mean, I had a feeling, because that time Harvey came into the research department, you looked at him like—and he's a good looking guy, anyway, but you're not talking about him, so-I'm just going to shut up."

"Oh, man. Just because Harvey's attractive and I've revealed to you that I experimented in college with one of my oldest friends doesn't mean I want to get into his pants," Mike says, looking infinitely amused. "Why is this conversation going here? Can it go somewhere else, please? What about you?"

"Are you asking if I've ever done the hanky-panky with another woman, then the answer is yes, and the name is Donna."

Rachel snaps her fingers in front of Mike's face when his eyes go a little out of focus as he imagines it. "Hey, hot-shot. Don't be a creep, and don't be so gullible."

"So you haven't—"

"Oh, come on—"

"But that would be _so_—"

"Shut up," Rachel says firmly, although she can't hide the exasperated beginnings of a smile. "Do you think you'll be okay? Donna says the current case is right up your little alley of caring and sharing."

"I'll be fine, yeah. And it's another sexual harassment case. It's really discouraging, how much shit you hear about people harassing each other in the workplace. How many cases can I possibly do without wanting to just become a midnight vigilante and kick these creeps' asses?"

"You're helping the victims."

"Yeah, _after_ the fact."

"It's better than nothing," Rachel says, "Case open and shut, badaboom, badabing, conversation about how you're not man enough _over_."

"I can't believe you just said 'badaboom, badabing'. You should warn me before you spew dork all over, so that I'll wear one of my cheaper suits when you get it slimey with your... _dorkness_."

"That was a great sentence."

"I did go to Harvard," Mike says, popping his collar.

"Yeah, yeah. Lunch is over, your highness."

"Do you need a ride?"

Mike looks up from his bicycle lock and into the face of Seth, with whom he hasn't spoken much since he won the pro bono case over him a month ago. "Uh, thanks, but I've got this—"

"It's kind of late to be riding your bike around New York, isn't it? And you look tired. I could get you home quicker," Seth says, grinning. "Besides, I doubt anyone will steal that thing overnight."

Mike frowns. "That _thing_ has a name, and has gotten me home just fine for years." He is pretty exhausted, though, so he follows Seth.

They walk towards the garage in silence until Seth breaks it, asking, "What is it?"

"What's what?"

"Your bike's name."

Mike laughs, adjusting the messenger bag strap on his shoulder. "Cat."

They stop at what Mike assumes is Seth's car – it's pretty impressive, although not Harvey impressive - and Seth looks at him strangely. "I was willing to ignore the weirdness of you naming your bike in the first place, but naming it 'Cat,' really? You live in East End, right?" Seth pushes a round key into the lock, and Mike hustles around to the other side to get in, confirming where he'll need to be dropped off. He tosses his bag into the back seat.

"I always wanted a cat growing up, but my grandma was allergic. She isn't allergic to bikes though."

"Seriously? When I got this baby here I was hungry for pasta, but I didn't name it Tortellini," Seth says, smirking as he pushes the key into the ignition. The tires squeal as they leave, although Mike doesn't think it's because they're bad tires, but rather that they're meant to draw attention.

"Yeah, well, maybe you should've. That'd be an awesome name for a car like this."

"Why's that?"

Mike looks at him, amused. "Because it's an Italian car."

"Good with Harvard trivia and car trivia, I see," Seth replies, and if Mike senses the slightest hint of bitterness within his tone, he has the courtesy to ignore it.

"Not really. Harvey's the car man."

"And the Harvard man, right?"

Mike freezes for a second, before he reminds himself that there's no possible way Seth could know. Still, he doesn't respond, choosing instead to reach behind the seat into his bag, groping around for his cell as an excuse to look distracted from answering further questions. He gives up after a minute of not finding anything.

"How's Harvey as a boss, anyway? He doesn't give most of us the time of day," complains Seth. Mike sees his knuckles go just the slightest shade whiter on the steering wheel.

"He's brilliant, and an ass," Mike replies, because he's sure that that's what Seth wants to hear. No use bringing up any suspicions about _why_, exactly, Mike doesn't think he's an ass, since most of the company sees Harvey that way. Charming, but an ass. "But mostly brilliant."

"I've heard both of those about him before," Seth says, like he's waiting to hear more. When Mike only shrugs, he rolls his eyes. "Oh, come on. You of all people must have more to say about him than that."

Mike's eyebrows furrow at that, and he presses his lips together, confused. "Why would I—"

"_There_ it is! It's that coy thing you do, isn't it?" says Seth, sounding vaguely accusatory. Mike nearly laughs, because he isn't anywhere even close to being a modest person. "That's what gets them all—and the mouth."

"I—excuse me?" Mike decides suddenly that he doesn't much like where this conversation is going. Whereas a moment ago, Seth had been friendly enough, his hands are now clenched tightly against the steering wheel, and his amiable grin has given way to a scowl that makes Mike regret getting in the car in the first place, if only because he doesn't need any more drama in his life.

"I wasn't sure at first, but then today I heard you practically _admit_ to it, and I knew. Why else would you get a question about fucking _pizza_?"

Mike, despite his discomfort with the situation, can't help but laugh. _Is that what this is about?_ "A question which I got wrong, if you remember and it's clear to me that you're not going to forget any time soon for whatever reason. And I'm still not sure what it is you're implying."

"Look, point is, people don't become Harvey's golden boy or have Louis go easy on them if they haven't done some serious cock-sucking." Seth glances away from the road for a moment to look him up and down disdainfully. "Harvey's desk looks like the perfect crawl space for that sort of thing."

Mike stares at him. He stares and stares, and sees no sign that Seth is kidding-Mike's never had all that many male friends besides Trevor and a few others, so maybe this is how guys sometimes joke around with each other? But the angry twitch of Seth's jaw tells him otherwise, tells him he should probably not be here. "I'm gonna need you to pull over," he says, his hand already on the handle.

Seth only scoffs and rolls his eyes, saying, "Don't be a loser, I'm just messing with you," like maybe he's realized his mistake in talking that way to someone who, if they wanted to, could sue him for harassment in a heartbeat while balancing on one foot with the bar exam handbook on his head.

But Mike doesn't let go of the door, and his heart doesn't stop pounding uneasily. He feels a little sick to his stomach, an uncomfortable pit of nervousness letting him know for certain that most regular men don't joke like this. "Pull over now," he says. "I can get a cab home."

Seth listens this time, stopping with a sneer in Mike's direction at a curb a few miles from Mike's apartment complex. As soon as Mike is out of the car he's gone, tires screeching all the way down the street.

"What the hell are you doing?" Mike's head snaps up from his desk at the sound of Harvey's voice. He blinks blearily, and Harvey barely holds back a noise of reluctant affection at the tiny crease on Mike's cheek that came from falling asleep with his briefcase pressed into his face. "Sleeping on the job? Making me look bad? Losing your case? I can go on, if you like."

Mike scrubs a hand down his face, covering a yawn. His eyes are almost closing again, like he just can't remain awake, even with his boss watching him. Harvey thinks to himself stubbornly, _Stop worrying. You don't worry._

"No, that's alright—I… wait, losing my case?" Mike straightens suddenly in his chair, flinging open his briefcase and shuffling through some of the papers, frantic and uncoordinated and still blinking away his exhaustion.

"You're fine, Mike. I assigned it to someone else."

Mike's frenzied movements slow to a stop, and he gives Harvey a wounded look. "You did what? That was—that was _my_ case, you can't just give it away!"

"It was pro bono, it's not like you would have made any special amount of money from it. And I can do what I want when one of my guys is slacking on the job I so graciously gave him in the first place," Harvey says, raising an eyebrow. "A job which, I might add, does not involve you telling me what I'm allowed to do and what I'm not."

Mike splutters indignantly, and Harvey is relieved to see that he suddenly looks more awake than he has in days. "I had a special _bond_ with Ms. Luden! She told me about what happened to her, and I wanted to help her—"

"You weren't doing a very good job of it."

"I know, and I'm sorry, but you can't—"

"Mike," Harvey says firmly, becoming annoyed as he leans into Mike's desk space. "I don't think you fully understand. I can do _whatever_ I want when it comes to you." And he means professionally, of course, but Mike still feels like all of the air has been stolen from the room. He swallows with difficulty, but before he can muster up anything besides a nearly inaudible, strangled noise, Harvey is walking away. He rushes to follow him.

"Will you at least tell me who you gave the case to?" Mike asks. Harvey turns and rolls his eyes.

"I'm not sure what the worst thing about you is right now; your concern for someone who is no longer your business, or that tie."

"I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that both of them disgust you equally."

"You're probably right. Smart kid, for an idiot," Harvey says, smirking. Mike just looks at him like he's waiting. "Oh—I gave the case to one of Louis' desperate puppies. Sam Riggs? Sally Riggs? It's a guy, but I think he might have been called Sally. Definitely an "S" name."

"Seth Riggs?" Mike asks, his eyes a little wider than normal. Harvey raises an eyebrow.

"That's the one."

"You gave my case away. To Seth Riggs," Mike repeats. "He is… he's probably the person _least_ equipped to understand a sexual harassment case, let alone the victim!"

"He graduated from Harvard, didn't he?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"Then what's the problem?" Harvey asks, honestly confused. "Why isn't he equipped for a sexual harassment case?"

Mike shrugs, and he won't look Harvey in the eye. "Mike, look at me. Why wouldn't he be able to work this case?" Harvey feels a little taken aback by the look on Mike's face when he finally meets Harvey's gaze—unusually shuttered and the slightest bit ashamed.

"He's just an asshole," Mike mutters after a long pause, looking away again.

"We're all assholes. I'm an asshole; that clearly has nothing to do with how good I am at my job," Harvey says, and then attempts to erase Mike's expression a moment ago from his mind.

Mike looks at him again, eyebrows drawn together, the curl of his mouth suddenly fierce. "You're not an asshole, okay? You pretend you are because that's the safest thing to do when you're around people who might actually care about you. I'm not stupid, and I see that the way you treat people isn't because you get off on it. You don't enjoy this little _heartless lawyer_ façade you've got going as much as you'd like everyone to believe. You do it because if you're a jerk from the start, people can't expect anything more out of you. And then if they do, it's their own fault when they're disappointed, not yours."

His voice is loud enough by the end that people are staring, and so Harvey yanks him into the nearest room, slamming the door behind them. He presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose, attempting futilely to get rid of his budding migraine. "You think you know everything about me after a few months, is that it? It was cute at first when you insisted I was mentoring you because I actually cared, albeit a little annoying. But this—you can't churn out your psychiatric bullshit any time you please, okay? This is a workplace. I am your _boss_. We aren't buddies, and I don't help you out occasionally because I'm worried I'll hurt your _feelings_ if I don't. I take care of you because if I don't, and you screw up, Jessica will look into you. She'll look into your background and she'll know we lied, and I'm not protecting _you_ from that, I'm protecting _myself_."

Mike is looking at him, shocked, like he's been sucker punched. For a moment, neither of them do anything, and Harvey has just enough time to begin regretting that little spiel before Mike's face screws up a little, let down or wounded or both, and a second later Mike is moving towards the door. Harvey is still standing stock still, too dismayed with himself to move, because saying that sort of thing may have been expected the first week or so of Mike's working here in order to help whip him into shape, but after a few months they have admittedly become closer and saying it _now_, when Mike is already stressed and bone-weary is nothing short of cruel.

As soon as he realizes this fully, Harvey springs into motion, pushing the door shut again just as Mike opens it a crack. He stays like that, leaned against the door with Mike in between."Mike—I don't—I mean, I didn't—I'm sorry," he says, his tongue uncharacteristically clumsy, as Mike turns around with a bit of difficulty. This is the first time in a long while that he's felt so thwarted by his predilection for pushing everyone away.

Harvey knows he's been weakened by the disappointment he feels Mike is harboring, and if there's one thing Harvey can't stand, it's the idea of being weak. But he thinks, as he watches Mike shift uncertainly at their closeness, sees Mike's adams apple force itself up and then down when he swallows, that perhaps this is a time he could make an exception. That maybe there are some people worth feeling exposed for, and that it's possible Mike is one of them.

Mike clears his throat suddenly, ducking out from under Harvey's arms. "It's fine, Harvey. It's fine, but—I'd like to leave, now. It's almost time for my lunch break."

Harvey briefly considers asking him why he thinks he deserves a break from sleeping, and decides against it when he realizes his chest feels so frustratingly tight he can't speak. He moves aside so that Mike can leave the room, and when he has, Harvey leans into the wall, clenching his jaw through what seems annoyingly like a physical ache. He doesn't _do_ this, with anyone. He and Jessica care about each other to an extent, but they don't share their lives. Occasionally they'll spout some sort of insight about the other, but not the kind that makes Harvey feel as though he wants to punch a wall while also having the knowledge that someone will fix him up afterwards.

Ten seconds later, he's out of the room and jogging down the hallway to catch up with Mike. "I'll get lunch with you," he calls, and it sounds like another apology.

Mike looks back at him, confused. "You don't have to—"

"You can tell me about those distractions that have been keeping you up all night," Harvey interrupts, and it sounds like an admission.

He still looks uncertain-although Harvey doesn't fault him for this considering the past ten minutes-but Mike's mouth twitches up into a tiny smile when he responds, "Okay."

It's three weeks after they send Trevor away on a bus before Mike speaks to Seth again. Mike has seen him around, occasionally been the recipient of an unkind sneer, but they haven't exchanged words since the night he drove Mike half-way home.

Mike knows that Seth lost his case—he doesn't know how he managed to do that, because there was plenty of evidence suggesting that the sole reason for Ms. Luden's termination was her refusal to sleep with the boss's son—and it's taken everything in him not to demand an explanation until now. He's still cautious of Seth, but Mike has never been one to put his own interests first, and he had liked Ms. Luden. So when Mike walks into the copier room and Seth is there, smirking down at a sheaf of papers in his hand, he keeps a few feet of distance between them, but only hesitates a little before clearing his throat.

"I hear you lost the Luden case." Mike doesn't say it in a particularly mocking way, just matter-of-fact, curious.

Seth looks up from his papers with a scowl, but when he sees that it's Mike, his eyes darken just the slightest bit and his lips curl into a sarcastic smile, the lines of it maliciously amused. "And you wouldn't have, I suppose."  
>Mike shrugs, moves to get to another one of the printers, but Seth turns his body so that it takes up more space, blocks his path.<p>

"Maybe not. But I guess we'll never know." He looks pointedly at where Seth is standing, in between him and the printer, but Seth doesn't move.

"Why is that, anyway?" Seth asks. "Why'd Specter pass off your case? If it's a problem with your cock-sucking skills, just know—"

"Shut up," interrupts Mike quickly, cheeks flushing with anger.

"—that I'm always here if you need someone to practice on," Seth finishes, leering, and Mike rolls his eyes, tries to push past him to the printer, but then Seth's hand closes hard around his wrist and he's shoved into the nearest wall hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

Seth invades his space, traps Mike with a forearm pressed against his collarbone, close enough that Mike feels his breath on his cheek. Mike might be a nice guy, but he's had just about as much as he can take of this without kneeing this asshole in the balls. He's considering doing just that when the door to the copier room swings open, and both his and Seth's heads turn towards it. Seth jerks away from him immediately, and Louis, standing in the doorway, raises an eyebrow.

"What's going on here?" Louis asks, in that way he has that says he doesn't really care, but he's a little offended and suspicious at being left out of the loop. Mike has never been so happy to see him.

"Nothing," Seth says quickly, glancing sharply at Mike.

Mike simply shrugs. He knows there are probably light bruises forming on his back where he was slammed into the wall, knows that he could form a viable case here for sexual harassment, but he also knows he can handle it. It might keep him up at night, a vaguely worried sort of insomnia that makes him feel uncomfortable in his own skin in a way he hasn't felt since he was growing up, but it's not worth forcing the lawyer Seth would most likely get to look into Mike's past.

It's not worth losing his job over, and it's not worth Harvey losing his job over. So he'll handle it, because he can.

Louis walks up to Donna's desk, knocks on the top, and then sucks his teeth loudly until she finally looks up, annoyed. "I need to speak with Harvey," he says as a greeting.

"Don't think so," Donna singsongs in return, going back to what is probably a game of Solitaire on her computer screen.

"It's about Mike." He'd hoped he wouldn't have to pull that card to finagle a grant to speak with the Great Harvey Specter, but it's worth it a little to see Donna's eyes narrow as she looks up, subtly concerned. He wonders sometimes why Donna and Harvey always look so concerned when someone outside of their little group brings up Mike like they know something, but he doesn't dwell on it too much.

"What about him?" she asks, her finger on the mouse slowing for the moment.

"I'd like to speak to Harvey," Louis responds, and a second later Harvey's voice crackles through the receiver.

"Send him in," he says. Donna rolls her eyes and waves him in, going immediately back to her clicking.

"What about Mike?" Harvey says as soon as Louis is within the doors of his office, tossing one of his baseballs up into the air and catching it like he thinks he's some sort of a pro.

"Are you aware that he's being harassed?" Louis gets straight to the point, and would be amused and a little triumphant at the way Harvey fumbles the ball a little as his gaze jerks up.

"Excuse me?" he says, voice dangerous in a way Louis hasn't heard since he pretend-threatened to fire Mike months ago and Harvey in turn actual-threatened to kick his ass.

For a second, Louis remains silent, lets his oncoming words keep to his throat, just to see Harvey's lips go a little tighter around the edges with annoyance. It's a brief, flickering feeling of power, to have information on something Harvey cares about, but Louis is not entirely a jackass, so he gives up after a moment. "I walked into the printer room earlier, and I could swear Seth Riggs had him shoved up against the wall a millisecond before either of them noticed me. Mike didn't look at all happy about it, either."

Harvey moves slowly, very deliberately, as though Louis can't tell how angry he is. He feels mildly insulted at Harvey's lack of faith that Louis can read him almost as well as Harvey can read everyone else. His movements as he places the baseball on his desk are jerkier than normal, and before he lets go, his knuckles whiten around the ball. When he stands, his posture is stiff, upset, and Louis has been on the wrong side of this angered, protective look of Harvey's one too many times to not feel a little bit sorry for Seth Riggs and what he has coming to him.

Then he remembers that despite being irritatingly good at his job, Mike is a fairly nice kid. Annoying, yes, but certainly not deserving of physical assault. He instantly loses that tiny shred of sympathy for Riggs as he recalls Mike's ill at ease, indignant face in the printer room earlier that day.

"Donna," Harvey calls, moving swiftly out the glass doors of his office. "Find Seth Riggs and get him up here, alright? I'll be back in a few minutes."

-

Mike is frowning down at his desk absently when Harvey pops into his cubicle and immediately goes to one knee in front of him, balancing himself with one hand on Mike's knee. Forcing a grin, Mike teases, "You proposing to me, Harvey?"

Harvey ignores him. "When someone is messing with you, you tell me," he snaps, voice as controlled as he can manage. The grin drops slowly off of Mike's face, and he shrugs noncomittally.

"Louis told you? Come on, I was handling it fine—"

"You shouldn't _have_ to handle it all by yourself. If someone is physically harassing you, it's your boss's legal obligation to take care of it."

Mike laughs, a little bitter, and mutters, "Legal obligation."

"Don't pull that, Mike, you _know_ by now that I—" Harvey starts. Thankfully, Mike interrupts him, allowing him a reprieve from actually admitting out loud that they're friends as well as colleagues.

"I know, you're right. Sorry." Mike shrugs again. He's been almost certain for a while that Harvey cares more than he lets on, but the issue with Trevor had served to assure him nearly completely. Mike clears his throat, and the next thing he says makes the pit of irrational guilt in Harvey's stomach grow twice its size, because he hadn't noticed, hadn't detected that anything was amiss, when it was a huge part of his job to do exactly that. "But—just, you said physical harassment. It wasn't a big deal, but he—I don't know, he made me feel uncomfortable, and he'd make these comments that were—he said things about my mouth, and he—" Mike cuts himself off, reddening with embarrassment or shame or something that Harvey never wants to see on his face ever again.

"That _asshole_," Harvey hisses, standing up abruptly.

"Harvey—it isn't—look, I was handling it, okay? He never actually did anything. It wasn't a big—"

"Stop saying that!" Harvey turns on him so quickly that a few of the papers on Mike's desk rustle. "Someone is physically and apparently _sexually_ harassing you, and it is a big fucking deal, okay, Mike? It's a big deal." He shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit for a moment, considering his next words. "I'm dealing with this now. And before you say anything, I'm not doing it because I think you can't handle it yourself. I'm doing it because I don't think you should have to. Nobody should have to."

Mike opens his mouth, and then closes it with a nod of concurrence. He gets up to follow right away when Harvey moves to leave his cubicle. Within a minute, they're outside Harvey's office, seeing Seth inside examining Harvey's desk like he wishes it were his own. Mike pauses only slightly, because he generally doesn't choose to be in the same room as a person who only an hour ago shoved him up against a wall so hard that he'll have bruises for a week. But less than a second later, there's a supportive hand against his back, and Mike takes a deep breath, walking into the office with Harvey.

Seth turns when he notices them, and smiles like he's done nothing wrong. Harvey schools his face into complete calm, restraining himself from punching this guy out for looking so offhand while Mike is standing right there. "Mr. Specter," he says, gooey suck-up voice in place. Then he smirks at Mike. "Mike."

Before Mike can say anything, Harvey gets straight to the point, rarely one to draw things out. "You're going to turn in your two weeks' notice before the end of the day," he says, his hand still on Mike's back.

Seth's grin turns so amused at this that Harvey seriously reconsiders hauling back and punching him in the mouth. "Good one, sir."

"I swear to god if you aren't out of my office within the next twenty seconds and reporting to Jessica Pearson that you're quitting, I will drag your name through the mud of every law firm from here to California. And believe me, that is some pretty thick mud. Your face will be in the most widely read newspaper in New York, letting everyone know that you both sexually harassed and physically assaulted your own colleague, forcing your parents to consider just how they managed to raise such a complete creep. I'd be surprised if they could even look at you if this gets out. Hell, I'd be surprised if your _pets_ could look at you."

By the time Harvey has finished, Seth finally seems to be taking this seriously, all the blood drained from his face and his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He manages to say idiotically, "I don't have any pets."

Harvey shakes his head. "Then I suggest you get some, because they'll be your only friends for a long time if you aren't out of my goddamn office in two seconds."

Seth scrambles out in what is probably the most pathetic and satisfying example of acquiescence that Harvey has witnessed in a long, long time.

As soon as he's gone, Harvey feels Mike relax a little against the hand still on his back. He looks at him and catches the end of a relieved grin when Mike says, "You're kind of badass, you know?"

"Of course I know," Harvey says, rolling his eyes. He thumps Mike just under his shoulder with an open palm, frowning when Mike winces. "Is that where he…" He trails off, not removing his hand, instead dragging a thumb gently across Mike's collarbone over his suit.

They lock eyes for only a second, and then suddenly Mike's own hand shoots up to grasp at the back of Harvey's neck and he's kissed, chaste, uncertain. Mike's lips aren't dry, which doesn't really surprise Harvey. Mike seems like the type of kid who carries around a chap stick everywhere he goes just in case he may need to have an impromptu make out session. Harvey ponders this for three whole seconds without responding, and that seems to be long enough to convince Mike that he's made a mistake, because he pulls away quickly.

"Oh, shit—I didn't—I mean, you didn't—fuck, I'm—" he stutters, red as Harvey has ever seen him, so Harvey takes pity and drags him back in by his skinny tie.

"Idiot," he grumbles against Mike's lips, and then Mike's mouth is open to his own, and Mike is making obscene and frankly pathetic noises from just kissing, for god's sakes, he can't even imagine the sounds he'd made if they were doing other things. Except suddenly he is imagining, Mike spread out on his sheets, grin stupid and hair every which way, with his lips red and sore, and—Harvey pulls back, the past hour and a half rushing back to him. "Is this alright? I mean—you're, you're comfortable with all of this, right?"

Mike stares at him for a moment, panting. And then he laughs. Harvey scowls at him. "I'm the one who initiated it, if you didn't notice," Mike says, voice struggling on the last words like he's going to laugh again.

"Yeah, well," Harvey starts, but Mike licks his lips and inadvertently drags Harvey's eyes down to them, and he forgets what he was going to say. He leans in again, some stubborn part of his personality (which he ignores this time) ashamed at the rate his heart is going, but a second later Donna's voice crackles through the receiver on his desk.

"You two realize you're surrounded by glass walls? Don't throw stones or your associate's clothes around, Harvey."

Mike jerks away from him, somehow even redder than before, when he'd thought he made a mistake, but after a moment he starts laughing, covering his face with a hand. A very nimble-looking hand, Harvey notes. "Fuck," Mike says, his shoulders shaking.

"That's the idea," Harvey agrees, and he thinks he can hear Donna rolling her eyes, but he doesn't much care at the moment. He adds, a little bit more tongue-tied and a lot less suave than he'd hoped, "Well, soon. Not right now. If you're alright with it."

But Mike only drops his hand and shoots Harvey the most genuine smile he's seen from him in weeks. "Yeah, okay."

END.


End file.
